Monday, May 30, 2011

This month’s entry into the La Stupido Hall of Fame is the control of traffic lights. When I drive on China Lake Blvdor Downs or Norma, I can see the traffic lights well ahead of me. I have no idea when they are going to change. If I did I could adjust my speed and go through them. Even if I had to stop, if I knew how long, it would make my trip a lot easier.

The secret word is predictability. If you can predict it you can use it. It is really La Stupido for traffic lights to change in the unpredictable way they do. Engineers now use computers to decide, based on cross traffic, when to change the lights. Engineers do this because computers allow them to do it. It is not because it is more efficient. The National Search Labs (NSLs) proposes the more efficient Harmonic Traffic Control (HTC).

Scientists all know the importance of entropy in everything technical. None, however, understand intuitively what entropy is and how to use it in their lives. Entropy is a measure of un-predictability. This is so negative that our brains cannot handle the double negative thinking required to put entropy to work for us. The lack of understanding of entropy is causing a glut everywhere in our society; especially in the computer world. Everyone thinks that “user friendly” programs like Windows are giving them more capability. You are wrong, all you hackers. You are cheating yourself and everyone you deal with. If you use Windows, you are lost in “Silicon Alley” and wasting all your capability on unnecessary moves.

You will find that entropy measures the number of moves required for running a program. But no one even counts them because all the moves, such as mouse manipulations, take zero energy and usually an infinitesimal amount of time. But it costs you dearly. You better start counting them. Everyone has a limited amount of moves. If you use your precious moves to run a big computer program you will not have them for achieving other goals. You must use them wisely.

So what about traffic lights? Traffic lights to be useful must be predictable by you, the driver. If all the lights in a city are green for east bound traffic for only 15 seconds and then green for the other directions for only 15 seconds each, the changes will be predictable. You still may have to stop, but you will know when and for how long and you will find it to be much easier and relaxing to navigate through the city. This is Harmonic Traffic Control (HTC). Goodbye road rage!

The National Search Labs (NSLs) has conducted an engineering analysis of HTC and has determined its hardware and software requirements. Pedestrian traffic has been considered as well as other potential problems. We believe the system could be nationwide and automobiles could even have factory installed dashboard indicators for greater predictability. Crazy! It would bring harmony into the whole country. The whole country would become more harmonic.

We propose that the city of Ridgecrest, California study the possibility of Harmonic Traffic Control in their area. It will be cheaper, easier, and more efficient than the present system, and will illustrate an important idea to the ignorant masses; especially those who call themselves “rocket scientists.”

If you are concerned about the predicted big earthquake said to be overdue in Southern California, you should know that it could be predicted well in advance when our government learns about the latest research. This does not come from a little ol’ lady who’s fountain squirts when earthquakes begin, or from a chicken farm where the birds get funny. Nor does it include the well-reported search for an electro-magnetic precursor. Ground stress changes take months and no electro-magnetics exist at these frequencies. The electro-magnetic wave length for 60 cycles is over 3000 miles and would take equipment that large to see it. This prediction method is the result of years of work by some of the world’s most respected engineers, scientists, and technicians. In this country they include K. E. Van Every two times recipient of the SAE Wright Brothers Award; A. M. O. Smith 1974 AIAA Wright Brothers Lectureship and the Robert H. Goddard award from Canada; Ed Heinemann Chief Engineer of Douglas El Segundo who is said to be responsible more than any other man for the US winning the war in the Pacific; Maurice S. Cahn who was an Aeronautical Research Scientist for NACA during its most respected and active years throughout the Cold War and who is now Director of Research for the recently formed US National Search Labs ; and Ed Warren top technician at the famous Lockheed Skunk Works.

Large earthquakes can be predicted as much as 2 months in advance and they can be moderated. This has been proven beyond all possible engineering doubt. It was first discovered in 1976 by Yulin Zhao, Research Professor at the State Seismological Bureau, Beijing, China. It is called the Yulin Zhao Method. Zhao showed changes in the Earth’s electrical properties two months before a 7.8 magnitude quake that killed a half million people at Tang Shang, China.

The proof begins with classical texts on the theory of elasticity (see “Theory of Elasticity” by Timoshinko & Goodier, 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill). It is shown that stress will change the electrical properties of all things from airplane wings to the Earth’s crust. These changes can be seen with complex function theory (CFT) which allows powerful insight into Laplace flow that all electricity must obey. But it can only be done with a computer program that allows experimentation and manipulation of the required algebra. Windows or any of the “user friendly” programs will not work. Don’t even think about using Mathematica.

To run the NSL programs many details must be known. The random variations of resistivety in the Earth may frighten the faint-hearted but understanding the transformation that can bring back Laplace’s equation will solve that problem. These methods were developed with funding from DARPA in the DOD. The NSL is now working on a quake detection system at Ridgecrest, California. We plan to make good engineering into a popular money making sport for groups like schools, clubs, scouts, etc. The modern computer makes it possible. Bill Gates makes it impossible.

Nickalas Sadi Carnot said it was the steam engines that gave the British great military advantage. He analyzed the possible thermodynamic processes with pressure, volume, and temperature diagrams. He discovered the maximum possible work that can be obtained from heat energy. He discovered the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. (1820)

Other people began studying thermodynamic diagrams and the equations that describe them. Theodore Clausius noticed that there was a mathematical animal that could only go up, never down. He named it entropy (Greek meaning: to change)

III. The mechanical equivalent of heat (1850)

A big shock happened when Joule measured the mechanical equivalent of heat. He found it to be so big that Kelvin could not believe it, at first. It has been measured and verified many times since. The BTU was equivalent to 778 foot pounds of work. The BTU had been defined as the heat required to raise 1 pound of water by 1 degree F. So if you heat a pint mason jar 1 degree it's energy is equivalent to dropping a 10 pound weight from almost 80 ft., WOW!!Now the BTU's that could be obtained from coal, oil, wood, beans, potatoes, everything had to be known for the design of every new working mechanical device and for human nutrition. The mad struggle for energy continues to this day. All the while something many billions of times more valuable than energy is not even being counted in some of the most important processes.

IV. Ludwig Boltzmann - defines entropy (1900)

There is still one more shock coming. The energy equivalent of order will be found to be so big there will be a world wide rush to get all the order you can into your system so you can be the richest SOB in the whole world. AAAND (listen carefully now) when you make your environment more orderly it helps others, aaand when others have a more orderly environment you become much richer. All of this will become obvious to everybody when we start getting entropy values for human activities. Let's get the numbers, then we can talk.

The energy required to create order is not now properly understood by anyone. It is hidden by the use of entropy as a measure of order. Entropy is the measure of the trash, or disorder in the subject system. Yportne is a measure of the order of the system.

Clausius' entropy was defined using macroscopic analysis until in 1900 Ludwig Boltzmann showed, using statistical methods, what entropy is on a microscopic scale. In an attempt to make the 2nd Law comprehensible, many people have defined something which expresses the opposite of entropy. Neg-entropy was proposed by Erwin Schroedinger. Since entropy is a measure of the probability of a system being in its present state, we atNational Search Labs propose a parameter which measures the probability of a system NOT being in its present state. We call this parameter "yportne" (pronounced eeportnee). It really does not matter what you call it as long as you satisfy the entropy requirement as well as the energy requirement. Let's get the numbers, then we can talk.

Leo Czilard explains Maxwell's Demon (1927)

He said if the Demon lowers the entropy in the box, then the entropy must go up in the Demon's system. He could have said if the Demon spends yportne he must get it from somewhere. Now the 2nd Law says yportne cannot be created and is as comprehensible as the first Law.

V. Entropy Happens

Entropy is a measure of the trash produced by any system.

When the entropy gets low the system is using its energy more efficiently.

When the entropy gets high most of your energy turns into useless trash. Even the elimination of the trash in general, wastes energy.

VI. Conclusion

We better look at where our yportne comes from and how it isspent. Until we do, chaos, including hate and war, is guaranteed.

Here are the well-proven laws of nature. Engineers obey them religiously. Let’s call them The Ten Demmandments. Everyone obeys them whether they want to or not. They are:

1.Force equals mass times acceleration.

2.All movement remains the same unless changed by force.

3.For every force there is an equal and opposite force.

4.All masses attract each other.

5.Energy cannot be created.

6.Energy cannot be destroyed.

7.Order cannot be created.

8.Order is destroyed by all real moves.

9.Every move is a move.

10.If you don’t have numbers,

You ain’t going no where, baby!

Notes:

>D1 through D4 are Newton’ Laws of Motion.

>D5 through D8 are the Laws of Thermodynamics.

All engineers and scientists know about these Ten Demmandments. But they missed the Jimmy Beasley Demmandment (number 9). This is what is causing all the world conflicts large and small. Every move you make costs you. You have to spend something more important than energy. Even if that move takes zero energy, or time, you still have to pay for it. Every thought you make you must pay for from your stockpile of moves. Watch out how you spend them! You only have a limited number.

Every point and click with a mouse are moves. You have a limited amount of energy so you don’t try impossible things like lifting automobiles. You must do the same accounting for entropy with numbers. The concept of entropy, or its opposite yportne (pronounced: ee port’ nee), can be used to get the numbers you need to live by. The entropy for any system, from superheated steam in a ship's boiler to a bunch of bananas, can be obtained. It must be obtained for everything we do or “we ain’t going nowhere, baby.” The methods for getting these numbers are well developed. We had better find out how, or at least, how to estimate them. We can show you how. Are you ready, or do you insist on believing that “user friendly” computer programs can do it for you.

A Plan To Get Numbers

The National Search Lab plans to correct the serious lack of scientific application of the 2nd Law by the following three pronged attack.

1. Make entropy measurements of all substances including food raw and cooked. (Entropy measurements are presently made for many substances and the methods are well established.)

2. Get entropy change requirements for all tasks such as flying an airplane, running a computer, filing papers, listening to television, everything including operating our body. (We do it for energy including requirements for operating our body. Go to this link and see:http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5686e/y5686e0e.htm )

3. Determine the human capability to make entropy changes by measuring peoples capability in simple situations where numbers can be obtained. (Jigsaw puzzles and other simple games can be used to get times and amounts for this item.)

With the numbers obtained from the above programs and some “Goot Enchineerink” we can now determine if we are getting enough order to achieve our goals. Otherwise, standby for more chaos...IT'S THE LAW!!!

When we get the numbers and learn to use them to help us make decisions, we will find out if we can do the things we now attempt.Where are the numbers? Your numbers?

Friday, May 6, 2011

There is no concept in the whole field of physics which is more difficult to understand than is the concept of entropy, nor is there one which is more fundamental.

The first law of thermodynamics is the law of energy, the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy, and every process that lakes place in Nature, whether it be mechanical, electrical, chemical, or biological, must proceed in conformity with these two laws.

About Me

Has worked with distinction as an engineer at,
National Advisory Committee For Aeronautics, 10 years
National Aeronautical and Space Administration, 5 years
Douglas Aircraft Company, 5 years
USA National Search Lab, 40 years